Hernandez associate indicted as accessory after fact in murder case

Friday

Sep 27, 2013 at 9:49 AM

FALL RIVER, Mass. -- Carlos A. Ortiz, an associate of former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez, has been indicted by the Bristol County (Mass.) grand jury on a charge of accessory after the fact of murder.

By W. Zachary Malinowski

FALL RIVER, Mass. -- Carlos A. Ortiz, an associate of former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez, has been indicted by the Bristol County (Mass.) grand jury on a charge of accessory after the fact of murder.

The indictment, announced on Friday morning, comes about a month after Hernandez, Ernest Wallace and Tanya Cummings-Singleton were indicted by the same grand jury on charges linked to the June 17 murder of Odin L. Lloyd in North Attleboro.

Hernandez, 23, is charged with first-degree murder; Wallace 41, with accessory after the fact of murder and Cummings-Singleton, 37, with contempt of court for refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating Hernandez. They are all being held in country jails across Massachusetts.

Ortiz, 27, was charged with a weapons violation a few days after the Massachusetts State Police and North Attleboro police arrested Hernandez on June 26 on the murder charge. Ortiz has been cooperating with the authorities and was with Hernandez and Wallace on the morning Lloyd was fatally shot five times in an industrial pit near Hernandez's $1.3 million mansion in North Attleboro.

A prosecutor said that Ortiz told investigators that just Hernandez and Lloyd left the rental car.

Attleboro District Court has canceled Friday's scheduled bail hearing on the weapons charge against Ortiz. No date has been set for him to appear on the new accessory to murder charge in Fall River Superior Court..